Dutch authorities move against Bredolab botnet

The High Tech Crime Team of the National Crime Squad in the Netherlands issued a press release today announcing action has been taken to isolate 143 servers from the Internet.

The servers were actively involved with the Bredolabbotnet, appearing to be command and control centers. They were hosted by LeaseWeb, one of the largest provider of hosting services in the Netherlands. The provider fully cooperated in the takedown operation.

Bredolab originated in Russia and rose to prominence in August 2009. The primary initial trigged for infection was through e-mail but later was delivered using a wide variety of methods, even being dropped as a payload by other known malware.

Dutch Authorities estimate that it was capable of infecting 3 million computers per month at its peak.